Two days in Granby

Happy Christmas from the women of Granby.

No apologies for this run of Granby posts up to the Turner Prize announcement on Monday. There are great things happening here.

As we continue work on the Community Land Trust houses.This is Thursday at our weekly site meeting.Steve and Joe from Penny Lane Builders deep in discussion with Joe from Assemble.Isn’t that just beautiful.

I’m really loving this time on site carefully restoring these Victorian terraced houses. Revealing and revelling in the beauty of their construction.

We are well on with this phase now.And plan to have a couple more ready for people to move into soon after Christmas.Then today, Saturday, was time for the 4 Streets Market.Taking place all this year in Ducie Street, the only street not yet being worked on.

As you can see from that rarely seen rear view of Ducie Street the works are going to be considerable when they get going. But let’s walk round to the Market?

Where children are deeply engaged in making things.Here at the Granby Workshop stall. Fran from Assemble there.

So all looking pretty good. Tell you what though, it was very cold and very windy.

And early on it was taking some considerable effort to feel festive!But Beatlife were there to officially get us going.And the drumming seemed to warm things up.As did the constant arrival of more people.And the goodly quantities of food.

I spent a while on the Homebaked stall. Demonstrating how to eat a vegetable curry pie whilst at the same time holding one corner of the gazebo down in the high wind. The other corners being secured by Sally-Anne, Cathy and Jeff. Well done team.

Later on the same team had a little more difficulty taking said gazebo down, joking just how many Community Land Trusts can this take?

But calmed down with a lovely piece of Guinness cake.More food there from Squash Nutrition.And from Rose Olive.Busy all day serving her halal Christmas Dinners.Here feeding the Granby Workshop team.Granby Workshop and Assemble weren’t the only makers at the market.Long time market supporter Hannah Spanner Martin was there with her dad and her friend Cecily Chua.With a new design for her screen printed tote bags.Which people could also decorate.

Thanks for the bag Hannah, just the right size for LPs!

Local artist, Sandi Hughes, was there showing video footage produced as part of the Rewind, Fast Forward project – an archive of Liverpool’s music, club and fashion sub-cultures.

Here showing old film archives of a Granby St party in 1995.

Displayed inside a container, so sheltered from the wind, were paintings and drawings made by Isabel O’Rourke during the restoration of Arthur Dooley’s Black Christ statue, and original prints made from this work using a new old process discovered by the artist.

Which Issy did describe to me as sort of etchings made on steel with various chemical and colour experiments.Here’s one of the results.Hope I’ve described the process more or less right?And really I didn’t take all that many photos. Because for me the Street Market’s all about talking to friends.Andy and Marilyn.John and Donna.

And many more I didn’t point a camera at.

Channel 4 were there too. Filming Dan Cruikshank for a programme about the history of the terraced house.

So this market was a cold one but everyone stayed and laughed and talked. Like we’ve done at the street markets for six years now. Six years of constant talking and thinking about what’s next round here?

Well next spring we want to move the Street Market out onto Granby Street, but that’s a whole winter away. For now it’s well done for all the organising this year Theresa and Joe.

And deep joy and festive wishes from us all. Including Councillor Ann O’Byrne, Deputy Mayor of Liverpool, Erika Rushton of the Granby 4 Streets Community Land Trust, and Rose Olive of Jermyn Street.